One of the minor arts of broadcast journalism is the vox pop – a handy, if often overused, way to get real people into reports. I can let you into the secret of what makes a good one - It’s down to closed or open questions.

If you are going to U-turn, do it quickly. That’s what Boris Johnson did over an immigration health surcharge including NHS and care workers. So maybe the Prime Minister is brighter than we in the LME usually give him credit for. 

To extend or not to extend. That is the question which soon will have to be settled. The Coronavirus crisis goes on and on to its indefinite horizon. But very soon, barely a month, Boris Johnson will have to take a big decision.

When Boris Johnson is toppled, who will get the credit who for exposing his incompetence and mendacity?

That will surely be owed to Sir Keir Starmer, Leader of the Opposition, who has had the Prime Minister on the ropes in the three rounds of their head-to-head confrontations in the Commons.  

Along with what I hope and believe is the majority of Labour supporters, I welcome the election of Keir Starmer as the party’s leader. It takes neither hope nor belief, because we have the evidence already, that he and those he has appointed to shadow ministerial positions far outshine the inadequate group of Conservative MPs currently in government.  They make us determined to see these latter replaced as soon as possible.

Dutch Child Refugees Arriving in Britain, Essex in 1945

This is an edited Q & A with WW2 child refugee Lord Alf Dubs who has vigorously campaigned for the UK to do more when it comes to the rights of child refugees and is now a Labour Peer.

After over seven weeks of shut down in Italy, people weary of mask-wearing and worried about when they can return to work, despair at the lack of EU urgency. The time for summitry is over. They must be shown and not just told about solidarity. 

Once again, we are having a wondrous warm wallow in the waters of WW2 nostalgia, the sense that Britain paid the highest price, won the most battles and was under Churchill the colossus nation that conquered Hitler’s nationalist ideology and liberated Europe.

Russians, Poles, Americans, Indians, the resistance in France, Italy, Greece and the Balkans also played a part, but we just write them out of the “We Won WW2” script.

(Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash)

At the moment, the government is adamant that it will not extend the transition period beyond December 31st. But it is worth remembering that Boris Johnson claimed he would “die in a ditch” rather than allow an extension of Britain’s EU membership beyond October 31st. That date came and went with barely a murmur and six weeks later Johnson won a landslide in the General Election. Anyone familiar with Johnson’s career knows that he is supremely comfortable with saying whatever he thinks will win him votes and popularity – so it is likely that any decision he makes around the transition period will be influenced by what he thinks the electorate wants.

The coronavirus crisis is far from over, but it is already teaching us lessons about how to tackle that other global crisis – climate change.